Everyone who enjoys painting entertains the idea of making a business out of it. The old saying "Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life" is usually a phrase that gets tossed around on forums when discussing the topic.
Like many before me, I decided to turn my passion in to something profitable. Life being what it is I was only able to do something quite small, but I still think I've come across some bits of wisdom to pass on to anyone thinking of taking the plunge.
10. Have a wide range of supplies, then be prepared to buy more. I've seen a lot of people underestimate how much is required to be a functional painting service. While you can usually get by with having, say, the full GW line, there will eventually be a project requiring specific colors. Not all paint ranges are the same, and even mixing colors to match can be a failure.
Not only that, but basing supplies, epoxy, various brush sizes, adequate lighting, pinning... there's a lot more than just paints required, and it's up to you to meet the customer's need. And if you want to have any sort of decent turn around, an airbrush is almost a must.
9. Your own models will suffer. Here's the one I never expected. It turns out that when you use your personal painting time for other people's stuff, you have less time for your own. Suddenly those painted models you were cranking out come to a standstill, or that display piece you were making progress on need to have a dust cloth thrown on top of it. Unless you're quitting a job and doing this full time (which I wouldn't recommend until you have a steady client base + backlog), something has to give.
8. Keep progressing. While it's perfectly fine to do what you know and never grow, you'll get burned out really fast. Even if you only do tabletop quality, learning different techniques is important to your sanity as well as your growth as a painter.
I've also found that people are pretty generous about letting you experiment on their stuff. I wouldn't recommend asking a new customer, but once you've developed a friendship with a repeat customer they're usually pretty trusting for you to either do a good job or fix a bad one. Truth be told, half the techniques I know were learned on models I didn't own.
7. Be more than a painter. The most popular painters are ones who do more than hold a brush in their hand all day. They make YouTube videos, they get involved on forums, they enter contests or donate to charities... the crazier ones blog every day and throw free stuff at people. What I'm saying is that commission painting is a community-oriented service, and your business will fade in to obscurity if you aren't active in the gaming community.
6. Life comes first. Learning to turn down projects is important. Learning to set realistic deadlines is even more important. If you insist on spending every possible moment finishing a painting project, you will miss out on a lot in life. You bachelors and bacherlorettes may have a bit more freedom in this regard, but having a spouse and/or kids should be your ultimate priority. Learn to schedule painting times when your time is less required. Coordinate your house to have individual time so the kids can play or do homework while you paint. Whatever you do, don't let your painting table compete with the rest of your life.
5. Respect your customers. If you're dealing with people over the internet, it's easy to forget that they're people. But these are people who are trusting you with their investment and paying you to make their stuff look nice. That takes a lot of trust on their part, so treat them well. Give them discounts for repeat business, do some special work (freehand, custom base) at no additional charge, or just be honest when you thank them for their business. Be in communication with them during their project, let them know right away if you are even expecting delays, and just be a decent person overall and they'll never regret doing business with you.
4. Be honest about what you can do consistently. I only do tabletop quality work. I do the very best work I can, but I don't expect people to put my stuff in a display case for people to "ooh" and "ahh" about. Given time and the right model, I think I've got what it takes to make a display piece. But I know I can't do it consistently with every model and paint scheme out there, so I don't even offer it. If I get inspired I'll spiff up a model or project I'm working on, and sometimes I'll take requests above what I normally do, but I would never advertise "display quality" because I can't deliver, nor do I currently have the desire to spend that much time perfecting a paint job while under a time crunch.
On top of that, make sure you have a realistic understand of what to call your work. The defitions and degrees of "tabletop" vs "studio" vs "display" qualities are very subjective. What I call "high tabletop quality" others would call "low display quality," while others might not even think there are degrees of tabletop. Having honest examples of your work is key here, because the last thing you want to do is paint an entire army and have your cutsomer say "That's a good start - I can't wait until they're display quality!"
3. Respect your time and talents. Asking people for money is hard, and valuing what your work is worth is nearly impossible. When I first started I asked people what they would pay for my work. Feedback took on a variety of forms. Some would give me a price that I felt was too high, some would point me to people with similar quality so I could gauge their prices, and others suggested timing myself to see what I should charge to make a decent wage.
The problem is that you can't really find an absolute price before you've started charging people. When I first started I didn't value myself nearly enough, despite my good friends (one of whom was a customer) saying I was charging too little. I thought that if I charged low enough I would lure people in, and the steady stream of work would make up for my low earnings. Quantity of quality, right?
The problem was when I sat down to do some math. Factoring in my material cost, plus time spent priming, sealing, and packing up the models, I was making less than $2 an hour. Sure I was painting, but that was just insane. After a lot of internal debate, number crunching, and honest evaluation of what I think my work was worth, I settled on a price I'm happy with. I still don't make minimum wage on it, but it's a number I'm comfortable with while still sticking to my goal of giving people nice looking armies at an affordable rate.
2. Be prepared to hate everything you paint. That old saying I talked about? It's a lie. Doing what you love is work. You go from having something you do to unwind from work and turning in to something with deadlines, people to please, and projects you don't like.
Go look at all the miniatures of 40k, Warmachine, or Malifaux. Find models, or even an entire faction, that you'd hate to paint and ask yourself if you could paint that for a year. Better yet, ask yourself if you could paint 500 Space Marines and still enjoy painting like you do now.
I don't say that to dissuade anyone. But it's important to have realistic expectations or you'll burn out after your first batch of monotonous troops. Accept that it will be work, you will be miserable, and you will lose some of your painting passion. That's just life - no matter how much you love what you do, when you can't enjoy your hobby on your terms you just can't enjoy it like you once did.
It's not always true, of course. I've been fortunate to enjoy almost every project I've received, and as a small-time painter I can afford to focus on projects I won't totally hate. But a lot of times you'll receive a batch of models you've always wanted to paint, or have a customer request a color scheme that turns out completely awesome, and you'll feel like a spry young painter again.
From what I've seen and experienced, a lot of burnout comes from people thinking that commission painting will be a blast from start to end. And when you find your passion fading, and wondering why you don't enjoy it like you once did, it's easy to think you should just quit because that must mean you hate painting.
If nothing else, just ease in to taking on projects. Start small, get some feedback, and look for your next project. If you find yourself getting overwhelmed then you need to learn your limitations. I've seen a number of commission painters go from taking on everything to plainly stating that they're easing off of constant projects because they started to hate the hobby. That's a great mentality to have, and one that I hope all commission painters are willing to accept before they stop painting altogether.
I'll say it again because it's so important - you can't turn your hobby in to a business without it affecting your love of the hobby.
1. Learn to be a business. This one never would have occurred to me without the help of a friend, but being a successful commission painter requires a business mindset. Developing a name, logo, website design, forum username, web presence, and overall identity is key to climbing over all those other businesses that don't. The commission painting business is tough - there are a few well known names out there, and with prices being so similar between everyone you're left with few ways to compete. You can underbid your competition, find a niche that no one else is really doing, or become a big name yourself.
If you're familiar with commission painters at all, odds are that you didn't learn about them from their commission website. Off hand, the popular painters I know are Lester Bursley, SchnauzerfaceMinis, and Worthy Painting. I knew these guys from their presence on painting forums, YouTube tutorials, or just their YouTube showcases. Google "miniatures commission painting" and see how many options you have. Those guys on the first 3 or 4 pages are going to be the ones getting business based on web results, and until your own site becomes more credible you won't be showing up on the results any time soon. [Seriously, I stopped looking for myself after 15 pages for fear of crying myself to sleep]
So before you start offering a service make sure you've got a plan to let people know you offer it. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, popular forums... there are a lot of ways to get your name out there before you've even figured out prices. Be a business before you have your first customer.
And that about does it. I hope my experiences can be of help to those of you wanting to try your hand at being a commission painter. It's hard, at times it's soul-sucking, but it's also incredibly rewarding. As long as you set realistic expectations for yourself you'll know pretty quickly if the business is right for you or not.
See you tomorrow!
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